permaculture

["Finca Mamaita" <info@fincamamaita.com>]

I've received the following through a permaculture mailing list.  It will be 
of interest to many of you.

Regards

Dominic





At IPC7 I brought up the subject of Permaculture for refugees, and folks 
thought it a topic worthy of consideration. Here's a report to help us 
understand some of the particular challenges of refugees.

> Subject: FW: Katrina, firsthand report
>
> This message is available on the Internet at
> http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18337.shtml
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences
>
> Note: Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that were 
> attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradshaw is the chief 
> shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is 
> steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790.[California]
Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at 
the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display 
case was clearly visible
> through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, 
> plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 
> 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, 
> pampers, and prescriptions and fled
the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew 
increasingly thirsty and hungry.
The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the 
windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The 
cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit 
juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did 
not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away 
the looters.
We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home 
yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a 
newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or 
front-page pictures of European or
affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.
We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the 
National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of 
the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed, were the real 
heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New 
Orleans.
The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. 
The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The 
electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to 
share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop 
parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many 
hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to 
keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery 
workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors 
clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any 
car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service 
workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for 
hundreds of those stranded.
Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of 
their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 
20% of New Orleans that was not under water.
On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French 
Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like 
ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from 
Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of 
New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including 
the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses 
and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen 
them.
We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with 
$25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not 
have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have 
extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours 
standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We 
created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. 
We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The 
buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City 
limits, they were commandeered by the military.
By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously 
abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as 
water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, 
telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the convention center to 
wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally 
encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed 
into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a 
humanitarian and health hellhole. The guards further told us that the City's 
only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and 
squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite 
naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what 
was our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our problem, and no 
they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our 
numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement".
We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were 
told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water 
to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide 
a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We 
would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible 
embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not 
stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the 
police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he 
had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the 
greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out 
of the City. The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back 
and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and 
wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The 
commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that 
the buses are there."
We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great 
excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals 
saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We 
told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few 
belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in 
strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and 
others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up 
the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did 
not dampen our enthusiasm.
As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the 
foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing 
their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various 
directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward 
and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of 
our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. 
The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied 
to us to get us to move.
We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there 
was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank 
was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their 
City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not 
crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.
Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain 
under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an 
encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, 
between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible 
to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we 
could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.
All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same 
trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned 
away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be 
verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented 
and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, the only two 
City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across 
the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving 
vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with 
people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.
Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck 
and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting!
A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of 
C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping 
carts. Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, 
community, and creativity flowered.
We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made 
beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the 
bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of 
plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food 
recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations 
(applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).
This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When 
individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for 
yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or 
food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look 
out for each other, working together and constructing a community.
If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the 
first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would 
not have set in.
Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and 
individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 
90 people.
>From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was 
>talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news 
>organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked 
>what they were going to do about all those families living up on the 
>freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of 
>us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.
Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. 
Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up,1 jumped out of his patrol 
vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the ------- 
freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away 
our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with 
our food and water.
Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law 
enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed 
into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" 
or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was 
impossible because the agencies would
force us into small atomized groups.
In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once 
again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in 
an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding 
from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding 
from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill 
policies.
The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New 
Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search 
and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a 
ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the 
limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section 
of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were 
unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.
We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport 
had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as 
flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at 
the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo 
plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.
There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort 
continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were 
forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have 
air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two filthy 
overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any 
possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were 
subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.
Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated 
at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food 
had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat 
for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not 
carrying any communicable diseases.
This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt 
reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give 
her shoes to someone who was barefoot.
Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of 
welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and 
racist.
There was more suffering than need be.
Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.


Finca Mamaita
Tel:  (0034) 952 153 292
Mobile:  (0034) 667 739 178